All the King's Horses and All the King's Men
by Konstantya
Summary: Ishara Yar and Ard'rian McKenzie try to put an android back together again. Mirror Universe AU. Related to "Façades," but can stand alone.


General Note: I'm only going to reformat my fics so much when this site is the one at fault. So if the formatting is weird, please check out my profile for more info. Thank you.

A/N: In case you need a refresher, Ard'rian McKenzie was the tomboyish machine geek from "The Ensigns of Command." Also, this one-shot takes place in the same universe as Façades, but all you really need to know about that fic going in is that the Terran Empire never fell.

**Warnings:** There is one very quick, very non-explicit instance of F-on-M non-con groping. Just putting that out there.

Obligatory (but ultimately pointless) CYA: I don't own it.

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**All the King's Horses and All the King's Men**

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"You really think you can do it?"

Her companion ran a hand over her hair. "I don't know. I mean, yeah, I'm good with machines, but this is a hell of a lot more sophisticated than what I'm used to."

Ishara sighed. On the makeshift examination table in front of them sat the pieces of an android, limbs and torso and head all lined up, as if it were just waiting for someone to pop him back together.

And not just any android, but one of _Soong's_ androids. Noonian Soong: brilliant cyberneticist, mad scientist, loose cannon, dead man. That the Resistance had even managed to get ahold of the android, dismantled as it was, was a miracle. And if they could get him _working_, well, it might just prove to be the boon they needed in this godforsaken, underground rebellion.

The Resistance had actually been in possession of the android for about thirty years, but it was only recently, with some stolen schematics—procured by a Vulcan spy, who had paid for them with his life—that reassembling him had become a viable option. The android, as it happened, had something of a 'twin brother.' A Lieutenant Commander Data, who served in the Imperial Fleet.

(Stationed to the _Enterprise_—the same ship, it turned out, as her sister. But Ishara didn't often let herself dwell on that.)

Not much remained of Soong's cybernetic work. He'd been a dangerous man, and most of his research had been destroyed in the raid on his lab—as had the man himself—lest any of it fall back into the Empire's hands. The android in front of them was one of the few things that had been saved. Apparently it had exhibited 'undesirable moral behavior'—which was to say, it actually _had_ morals—and had thus been dismantled.

Sometimes it made Ishara see red, to think of how easily the Empire discarded people who didn't fit into their neat black, ambitious boxes. She supposed she should have taken some comfort in the fact that this one, at least, could potentially be brought back to life.

As if on cue, Ard'rian picked up her spanner with a to-hell-with-it shrug. "Well," she said, "we'll never know until we try, I guess."

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Eleven hours and two sore backs later, he was whole.

Ard'rian shut the panel on his head with a little _click_ and cracked her back. "Well, that should do it." Ishara bit her lip and held her breath.

She'd draped a blanket over his hips in an attempt at modesty. It just didn't seem right for him to be so exposed, now that he looked so human. Ard'rian had shot her a look and said something about how she could do with seeing a penis more often, but Ishara had pointedly ignored that particular comment.

"Well…now what?" she asked, exhaling in a puff. It was all very anti-climactic, to spend all that time reassembling him only for nothing to happen. Not to mention a little creepy. Now that he was all in one piece, he looked less like a dismembered doll and more like a corpse. That pale, white-gold skin of his wasn't helping.

Ard'rian shrugged, unaffected as ever. "Maybe he has an on switch?"

Ishara shrugged back. It was as good an assumption as any. After all, every _other_ machine she'd come in contact with had a power button. Gingerly, she poked at his left wrist (because that was where he would have a pulse, if he were human?), then began working her way up his arm. Ard'rian followed suit and began wiggling his toes, one by one, as if they were volumes on some ancient bookshelf, and shifting the right one might trigger a secret passage.

Just where the _hell_ would someone put a power switch on an android? Ishara pried his jaw open and looked around, hoping she'd find a bright red button on the roof of his mouth or something. No such luck. She glanced back to see if Ard'rian was getting anywhere—which was an interesting way to phrase it, considering that the other woman had her hand under the fabric across his hips and a rather impish look on her face.

"Ardi!" Ishara hissed. Ard'rian jerked her arm out from under the blanket, and at least had the grace to look guilty—but she recovered quickly and planted defensive hands on her hips.

"Oh, as if you weren't curious about how real it felt," she retorted.

Ishara flushed, despite herself. "That's not the point! How'd _you_ like someone poking at _your_ bits when you're out cold? Isn't that one of the reasons we're even in this to begin with?" she demanded. "Because we're sick of shit like that?"

"Okay, okay," Ard'rian relented, palms held up in surrender. "Calm down. Anyway, Soong obviously saw fit to make him anatomically correct; who's to say his dick _wouldn't_ be his on switch? It is for just about every other male," she added in a mutter.

How true.

Seeing that Ard'rian had moved on to clinically prodding his belly-button, Ishara took a long breath and resumed her own searching.

It had been a long day, they'd been in hiding for weeks, supplies were running low, and her nerves were beginning to fray. Sometimes it felt like the Resistance would never get anywhere like this. They were such a minority, after all, and the Terran Empire was so powerful… Sometimes it felt like such an exercise in futility.

Ishara sucked a bracing breath in. She'd never get anywhere if she kept that line of thinking up, that was for sure. With renewed determination, she felt the android's neck, shoulders, chest. His musculature had been crafted to look like a human's, but it didn't quite feel like it. He was a little denser, a little firmer. Cold, she thought, and there she was, back to seeing a corpse in front of her.

Ishara pushed herself back with a sharp sigh. "Let's turn him over. Maybe it's on his back somewhere?"

Ard'rian shrugged, and grabbed his arm in preparation. "No harm in trying. Ready?"

Ishara braced her hands against him and nodded. After some straining, they managed to get him onto his stomach.

"Shit," Ard'rian breathed. "He's a lot heavier now that he's in one piece."

Ishara wiped her arm across her forehead and nodded. A little self-consciously, she shifted the blanket so that it covered his posterior, noting with some embarrassment that it was a very _nice_ posterior. Funny, the things one didn't notice until a torso was attached to a pair of legs.

Maybe Ardi was right. Maybe she _did_ need to get laid.

She sighed again and started prodding his back, trying not to notice the breadth of his shoulders, trying not to think of how long it had been since she'd last been with a man—

Her fingers dipped into his spine.

Ishara blinked.

She poked the spot again, just slightly. Sure enough, there was definitely a little hollow there.

"Hey, Ardi," she said, voice suddenly hushed with anticipation. "Ardi, I think I found something."

Ard'rian looked up from where she'd been inspecting the back of his neck. Moving closer, Ishara grabbed her hand and led her fingers to the small of his back.

"Do you think—?" Ishara broke off, daring to hope. Ard'rian carefully stuck her fingers further into his skin, and after a moment, made a face.

"Well, I have no idea what the hell _those_ are," she muttered, "but _this_…certainly feels like a button to me." She looked up at Ishara. Ishara swallowed and nodded. With a bracing breath, Ard'rian pushed it.

He jerked once, immediately, causing both of them to jump back, and then was still. After a moment, his fingers started twitching. Then his toes. Then his head. It almost looked like he was…struggling. Had they assembled him correctly? Or was it maybe…

"Turn him over!" Ishara suddenly cried. She couldn't say why it was so important, exactly—just some sort of vague feeling that, after being asleep for thirty years, the last thing _she'd_ want was to wake up face-down, with her nose flat against a metal table. Suddenly, she wished they'd had the foresight to find clothes for him.

With him on his back again, they could finally see: His eyes were darting back and forth behind his eyelids in what distinctly resembled a processing motion of some sort—and then with a surprisingly human gasp, he lurched upright.

And promptly pitched to the side.

Instinctively, Ishara reached out to catch him before he could fall off the table. "Are you alright!" she asked. A bit too concerned, and she knew it. Ardi was always saying her compassion would be the death of her, and while she had a tendency to agree, she could never seem to make herself stop.

(Secretly, it was something she was proud of, foolish though it may have been; if nothing else, it set her apart from the callous brutality of the Empire.)

"It appears my gyroscopic sensors need to be recalibrated," he said, still listing into her. His voice was low and smooth, and with a drunken sway, grasping at the edges of the table for support, he managed to right himself. "I'll have to run a self-diagnostic."

"Oh," she said, a little dumbly.

"Where am I?"

"At a Resistance base on Lycor III," she answered.

" 'Resistance,' " he echoed. He looked up at her, and she found herself taken aback by his eyes. They were so clear, so yellow, so…soulful. It occurred to her that a machine shouldn't have looked so vulnerable. "Spock's Resistance, you mean? Against the Terran Empire?"

Ishara's mouth moved, but no words came out. His skin, she noticed, had begun to warm up under her fingers, and against her will, a blush rose to her cheeks. Luckily, Ard'rian saved her from looking like a fool for _too_ long by dryly remarking, "What's left of it, at any rate." The android looked over at the other woman, and then took in his surroundings—cave walls, lanterns, makeshift table, and all.

"I see," he said. He turned back to her, recapturing her with those alien eyes of his. "Did you reassemble me?" His expression was so open, so searching. For some reason, Ishara suddenly felt like the prince from the tale of Sleeping Beauty and found herself blushing again.

"Uh, w-well, it was mostly Ardi," she stuttered out. Remembering herself, she managed to tear her gaze away and gestured to her companion. "Ard'rian, I mean. Ard'rian McKenzie."

Ard'rian raised a suggestive eyebrow at her, but before Ishara could even think to glare at her, she stuck out her hand with a chirpy little smile. With a bit of effort to keep his balance, the android raised his own hand to meet hers. His skin glinted like marble in the lamplight, like alabaster.

"Pleased to meetcha—ah…" Ard'rian's face fell uncertainly. "That is, do you…_have_…a name?"

"Lore," he simply said.

Lore. How fitting. Like something out of mythology, or a magical tome. Machine into man. Stone into flesh. Maybe her fairytale analogy hadn't been so far off.

He looked back to her. "And _your_ name?"

"Ah…I-Ishara. Yar."

"Ishara. Ard'rian." He nodded at each of them in turn, and then looked down at his hand, flexing the fingers, testing the movement. "Thank you," he murmured. Ishara thought he looked tired, but surely that was just an illusion. A side-effect of his sensors needing recalibration, right?

She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "We should probably get you some clothes," she said. "Can you walk?"

He looked back up at her and shrugged a little. So casual, so _human_. "Won't know until I try, I guess." With some effort, he swung his legs to the side of the table, wrapped the blanket around his waist, and carefully lowered himself onto his feet. His body still seemed to want to lean to the left, but with Ishara's help, he managed to take a couple steps without falling over.

"How long will your diagnostic take?" she asked.

"Not long, though I should probably do a full systems check while I'm at it. Less than an hour, altogether."

"Oh," she said, again rather dumbly in her opinion. A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Er…if you'd like some privacy… We don't have much in the way of formal rooms, but I'm sure we can find something."

"That would be nice. Thank you," he said again. He laughed a little self-deprecatingly, then shook his head. "Thirty years, three months, two weeks, five days, twenty-one hours, sixteen minutes…" he mused. "I don't suppose my old man is still alive?"

Ishara tensed a little guiltily. "No," she said, distantly. "He isn't."

Something flickered in his eyes. Something conflicted and sorrowful, that made her heart _ache_ because she knew that look, knew it so well. (Had worn it when her sister had left for the Imperial Academy.)

He smiled at her then, a little sadly, as if he knew Soong had been killed by Resistance rebels, as if to let her know he didn't blame her for the association. "Probably for the best," he admitted.

Something swelled in her. She shot a parting nod at Ard'rian, and then squeezed his hand in an attempt at comfort. (Did androids even _need_ to be comforted?) He was so strange, so solid, so sad, and she wanted to use him as an anchor. Wanted to reach down and drag him from his depths. Wanted him to be a savior and wanted to save him, and it occurred to her that whatever she might have expected him to be, this melancholy man wasn't it. But melancholy was still a far cry better than murderous. That was enough, she told herself. It _had_ to be enough.

Ishara bolstered herself with a stubborn surge of hope. "Come on," she said, carefully guiding him forward. "Let's get you some clothes."

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A/N: Apparently I ship Lore/Ishara in every universe. XD (And mirror!Lore, you're so melancholy! I honestly wasn't expecting that when I began this fic.)

In other news, a chapter ten is in the works for Façades. It's coming slowly, but steadily. But I had head-canon about mirror!Ishara nagging at me (specifically, that, instead of running off to join a gang like her canon counterpart, she ran off to join the Resistance), hence this little one-shot.

Anyway, thanks for reading!


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